U.S. Blacklists Russian Officials Linked to Human Rights Violations

On May 19, 2011, Senator Ben Cardin introduced S. 1039, the “Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2011.” Cardin authored the bill in response to the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer imprisoned over charges of embezzlement after having accused officials in the Russian Interior Ministry of fraud and theft of state money. According to the Public Oversight Commission of the City of Moscow for the Control of the Observance of Human Rights in Place of Force Detention, Magnitsky suffered physical and psychological abuse in prison before dying from the poor conditions...(more)...